


In This Fall-Colored Light

by MorganD



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Jalec Sexy September, M/M, Sensuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-25 03:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12027126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorganD/pseuds/MorganD
Summary: Jace and Alec reminisce.





	In This Fall-Colored Light

“Hey. Are you okay?”

“Hmm? Yeah. Why?”

“I don’t know. It just looked like you were a thousand miles away from here.”

“Oh, no, I was right here. Here, but thirty-five years ago.”

“Alec, come on, you’re still too young to be getting senile. You weren’t here thirty-five years ago.”

“No, I was in New York. But then you arrived, fresh from Idris. From here.”

“You were thinking about the day we first met?”

“Yeah.”

“About how you almost killed me with that arrow?”

“Hah, no. You’re never gonna let me live that down, are you?”

“Nope. Never.”

“Oh, if only my aim had been just a little _worse_ …”

“Your aim was not _completely_ atrocious, but that’s not why you didn’t kill me. I survived because I was _fast_.”

“I thought it was because of your _confidence_. What did you say to me back then? _‘Once you believe you’re the best’_ …”

“Then you become the arrogant little shit that I was?”

“ _‘Was’?”_

“I got better.”

“Huh. Not sure I’ve noticed any improvement.”

“Harsh! So if you were not remembering how you almost murdered me on sight, what _were_ you thinking about?”

“About a little later than that, when I was showing you the Institute, and we ended up on the roof.”

“I remember that. We had our first fight right there and then.”

“You mocked me for being too short to look over the parapet.”

“I’m sure you enjoy the irony now.”

“You were such a brat.”

“I was _adorable_.”

“Hm. That too.”

“Really?”

“You were… _shining_.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was late in the afternoon, and it was the first week of November… so there was this golden fall light coming from the west, and the clouds were red and pink and purple… and you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Your hair, your eyes, your skin… There was this… _shimmer_ around you.”

“Wow. A shimmer?”

“Uh-huh. I remember thinking that maybe it was because you were still wrapped in the aura of this place.”

“I don’t dispute that Idris _is_ a beautiful country, and pretty magical in its own way… but I don’t think anyone gets a special _‘aura’_ just from being here.”

“I know. But I was just a kid, and I had no memories of Idris, even though I was born here. So I would spend a long time looking at photos and pictures and maps… but mostly at those illustrations in the old history books, and fantasize about these whimsical landscapes, with the limpid, starbright waters of Lake Lyn surrounded by multicolored trees and fields of asters and crocuses and clematises.”

“Uh… didn’t those images show the evergreen forest?”

“Yeah, but… a lot of them took some poetic license with the colors, so they weren’t really _ever_ green.”

“Heh.”

“I remember one illustration where the woods were actually painted in various shades of blue and purple. And there were some paintings in Impressionist style that seemed to have all the colors of the visible spectrum.”

“Were you disappointed when you actually saw it?”

“The forest?”

“Yeah.”

“I wasn’t paying any attention to it.”

“No? After fantasizing about it for years?”

“I had just felt you die, Jace. Nothing would ever look beautiful to me again. Not until I got you back. And when I did… all I could see was you.”

“Hey… Don’t cry.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re about to. I feel what you feel, remember?”

“I… Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“Worst day of my life. Bar none.”

“It’s okay, Alec. I’m right here.”

“I know. But for twenty-two minutes, you weren’t. And the pain… even after all these years… I never really forgot.”

 “Come here. Lie down beside me.”

“Our clothes will be covered in dirt and leaves…”

“Don’t care. I just want to hold you.”

“Hmmm. Fine.”

“Comfy?”

“…yeah…”

“You shimmer too, you know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. You always have. At first I thought it was because you were meant to be my parabatai. But it was so much more…”

“I _don’t_ shimmer. I’m opaque and gloomy. Everybody knows that.”

“ _‘Everybody_ ’ doesn’t get to see you the way I do.”

“Yeah, right. With bed head and morning breath, sweaty and stinky, broken and bloodied…”

“…and dirty and covered with leaves. Positively shimmering.”

“Even if I ever did have some shine in me when I was young, I’m sure it’s all gone by now, covered by wrinkles and all the grey hair.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then maybe you’re losing your sight.”

“You look as stunning as you did in our first date.”

“You were drunk on our first date, Jace.”

“Slightly tipsy.”

“Couldn’t get through it without some liquid courage, could you?”

“Don’t tell me _you_ weren’t nervous.”

“I had _reason_ to be nervous.”

“And I didn’t?”

“You already knew how I felt. I was the one praying you wouldn’t realize you had made a colossal mistake.”

“And I was praying you wouldn’t realize I didn’t measure up to all your fantasies.”

“It’s not like I didn’t know exactly who you were.”

“You didn’t know me in _that_ particular context.”

“I had seen you on dates before. Just not with me.”

“And that was something else to be nervous about. You already knew all my moves, and I knew you were not impressed by them. Talk about seeing me in my worst moments.”

“Those weren’t your _worst_ moments, Jace. It was just you thinking you had to be something you were not. Which, incidentally, was a feeling I could relate to.”

“I wanted to _impress_ you. And I had no idea how. You were used to Portaling for dates all over the world, and going to fancy places with fancy views to eat fancy food and come back with fancy souvenirs…”

“Why would you even think about that? You already knew everything about me. All my favorite foods and places and things to do… all my allergies and things I hate… and you could actually _feel_ whether I was pleased or not. Seriously, even if you were competing with my previous relationship—which you weren’t—you had the most unfair advantage over him.”

“But I also had the biggest disadvantage.”

“What?”

“I knew _exactly_ what I’d be losing if things didn’t work out between us. Anyone else could get out of a first date with you and think, _‘Yeah, it didn’t go too well, that’s a pity, but really, not the end of the world, it’s not like he was my soulmate or anything…’”_

“I would have remained your soulmate no matter what.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like I could have hoped to ever find anyone better than you.”

“And that’s why you got drunk.”

“Marginally buzzed.”

“You rolled four balls into the gutter, Jace.”

“I thought I’d keep you in a better mood if I let you win.”

“You never _let_ me win. One, because you enjoy ascertaining your superiority over me…”

“No, I don’t!”

“…and two, because you know how much I hate being patronized.”

“Hey, seriously. I am not superior to you, parabatai. Not in any way that matters.”

“I know, I know. But you do love competing, and you do love competing with me, and you do love winning. When you put all those things together…”

“Maybe having our first date at a bowling alley was not the best idea.”

“It was a great idea, because we could be in public and be ourselves and no one would think anything of it. Plus, no Nephilim or Downworlders in sight.”

“Because they all know bowling is totally lame.”

“Says the one who was defeated.”

“I was drunk.”

“Furthermore, you could hug me in celebration when I got a strike, and I could hug you for comfort when you missed. Lots and lots of hugs. Right in front of everyone.”

“It’s a little weird to think of that, now.”

“Of our first date?”

“Of all the cloak-and-dagger. Covert dates… clandestine encounters in motels… literally hiding in closets to make out…”

“Our secret code to exchange messages…”

“Hiding under your desk to blow you while you talked shop with Raj…”

“That was _not_ cloak-and-dagger. That was _evil_.”

“And you loved it.”

“Hm.”

“If anyone had told me back then that someday we would be allowed to be a couple… officially…”

“I know. That was a law I never expected to change. Not in our lifetime, possibly not ever.”

“Oh, our wedding. You were definitely shimmering then.”

“It was a gold wedding, Jace. Everyone and everything was shimmering that day.”

“Yeah. Can you believe that, Alec? We had a _gold wedding_.”

“Well, it was only two years ago, so I haven’t managed to forget it yet. Still not senile.”

“And you were the most beautiful thing that _I_ had ever seen.”

“Now I _know_ you are losing your sight.”

“Does it really bother you? Getting old?”

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Nope. Not really.”

“Seriously?”

“The older I get, the more memories I have of you. Of us. And I want to have my head completely filled with memories of us, good and bad. Ideally, I’d eventually just forget all my bad and trivial memories of other stuff, and instead have just a gazillion memories of us spinning in my mind, like a merry-go-round, day and night.”

“Oh, Angel…”

“Too sappy?”

“ _Way_ too sappy, Jace.”

“Ah. Guess I have mellowed with age, huh?”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all, actually.”

“Good to know, since you’re stuck with me.”

“But I must say, as much as I like the idea of a merry-go-round of memories, when I look back, I kind of see it all as a…”

“Roller coaster?”

“More like a bumper car dashing down a roller coaster rail through a ghost train tunnel.”

“That sounds like a lot of fun, actually.”

“Yeah, _you_ would think so.”

“You’re a bit of a contradiction, you know.”

“I thought you were going to say I’m contrary.”

“That too, although you were a lot worse when you were younger. Age has mellowed you too, Alec.”

“Why am I a contradiction?”

“Because you’re so mistrustful of strangers and averse to change in your personal life… and you’re so protective of everyone you love, partly because you’re constantly expecting the worst to fall upon our heads…”

“You’re saying that I’m cautious.”

“Sure… in a somewhat histrionic kind of way… _Ouch!”_

“Where’s the contradiction?”

“Not sure I want to tell you now. You’ve just kicked me!”

“I was just repositioning my foot.”

“Yeah, against my shin!”

“Poor baby. What’s the contradiction?”

“Well, the Shadow World has lived in relative peace in the past decade in part because of the Downworld Cabinet you created, which is all about fostering trust among people who have centuries of reasons to mistrust one another. And your efforts as head of the Institute have brought a lot of positive change to our entire community.”

“It’s not like I did any of that on my own.”

“And maybe you look at the world and expect the worst of it… but you also see the best in people… like you definitely did with me…”

“That wasn’t hard to do. You _shimmered_.”

“…and you know how to get people to work at their very best.”

“I wasn’t always good at that.”

“And you look at images of evergreen forests and your mind makes up poems about shimmering flower gardens blossoming under a sunny sky.”

“I was just a kid…”

“You’re still a kid.”

“Yeah, a kid who will be grunting at the pain in my knees when we get up from here.”

“So let’s not get up.”

“Ever?”

“Well, I figure we’ll get hungry at some point, but until then…

“Jace…”

“Hmmmm?”

“Where do you think you’re going with that hand?”

“Inside your pants, of course. Where else?”

“Are you crazy? Hey!”

“Come on, Alec… How about a nice roll in the leaves?”

“Someone might show up and see us!”

“So? We’re married. It’s not a crime anymore.”

“Public indecency still is.”

“Says the one who’s not wearing underwear…”

“That was… uh… not meant as an… hmmm… invitation…”

“Like I don’t know you. Like I’m not the one who can feel when you’re pleased. Remember?”

“Okay, now that is… oh… totally unfair… ahhh…”

“Is it?”

“Hmm, yeeeaaahh…”

“Should I stop, then?”

“I’ll divorce you if you do.”

“Don’t worry, babe. You’re stuck with me for good.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Week 1 of Jalec Sexy September – Fall.
> 
> Inspired by the 1979 song [“Carrossel” by 14-Bis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9MzIAhCNT8)).  
> This is my translation of the lyrics:
> 
>  
> 
> _You’ll arrive in the afternoon_  
>  _Shining in this fall-colored light_  
>  _You’ll remember how much I would dream_  
>  _A flower-covered country on a star_  
>  _So much time has passed, I know, without reaching you_  
>  _A merry-go-round spinning in my dream_  
>  _In your eyes lives a garden made in song_  
>  _Blossoming in the clear sunny horizon_
> 
>  
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr as morgandeeyue.


End file.
